Future of work

In 2019, more than one million people were employed in Canada’s health occupations, and immigrants accounted for a quarter of them.

At the same time, Canada is a signatory to the World Health Organization’s Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel. The Code aims to reduce the active recruitment of health workers from countries facing critical shortages of these workers, and it provides principles meant to guide the ethical recruitment of international talent. The author argues that Canada’s active recruitment of internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs) is in breach of the Code and is also a wasted opportunity for Canada.

In addition, the author argues that while it is important for IEHPs to acquire credential recognition in order to practice in Canada, the difficulty involved in doing so is a major contributing factor to the underutilization of immigrants with health-care education. Furthermore, Canada has neglected health workforce planning issues and lacks basic information about the supply and demand for health workers in the country. This has led to disjointed data on the subject, which hinders the ability to address labour shortage issues across the country.

Recommendations include improving data availability and co-ordination, engaging the health-care landscape’s multiple stakeholders in long-term labour force planning, and embedding ethics into hiring practices to create systems that will allow for the full participation of IEHPs in Canada.